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Quotes from Bjarne Stroustrup

"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."

"Certainly not every good program is object-oriented, and not every object-oriented program is good."

"Clearly, I reject the view that there is one way that is right for everyone and for every problem."

"Consequently, a general-purpose programming language should support a variety of ways of thinking and a variety of programming styles."

"Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful."

"First, I'd like to see the basic tools such as compilers, debuggers, profilers, database interfaces, GUI builders, CAD tools, and so forth fully support the ISO standard."

"For many applications, C++ is still the best choice when you don't want to compromise between elegance and efficiency."

"However, when Java is promoted as the sole programming language, its flaws and limitations become serious."

"I also hope that C++ implementation vendors will spend a slightly larger fraction of their budgets on improving the quality and performance of their compilers rather than concentrating too heavily on novelties."

"I encourage people to consider the two languages according to their design criteria and not just in the context of commercial rivalries."

"I find languages that support just one programming paradigm constraining."

"I would encourage nonproprietary standards for tools and libraries."

"In the short term, say 10 years, many such standards will be industry standards rather than formal ISO or IEEE standards, but it is essential for the software industry's health that key interfaces be well-specified and publicly available."

"It is easy to study the rules of overloading and of templates without noticing that together they are one of the keys to elegant and efficient type-safe containers."

"Java has borrowed much from C++, but not as much as is often claimed and not with as much taste and understanding as one could have wished for."

"My list of basic tools is a partial answer to the question about what has changed: Over the past few years, large numbers of programmers have come to depend on elaborate tools to interface code with systems facilities."

"Naturally, this support for more than one approach to programming causes more complexity than supporting only one approach."

"People who passionately want to believe that the world is basically simple react to this with a fury that goes beyond what I consider appropriate for discussing a programming language."